This begs the question, why continue to build it? If you believe AI will “kill us all” then why are you continuing to help. This guy quit but he references this being a common belief in the industry/workforce building out AI.
My best guess is the money is good and you figure you’re here for a good time, not a long time.
Why do so many people continue to work with regimes that they fundamentally disagree with? There are lots of reasons, and people are complex so one person can hold several, even contradictory, beliefs at once. Some possible answers;
-It’s easier to go along with it and think of myself as being insignificant to the whole.
-Everyone else is doing it, so it can’t be as bad as I think, right?
-Its too big for any one person to fight/it’s inevitable, so I may as well get something out of it, that way at least some good comes from it.
-If I just focus on my job and what I’m doing right now, I don’t need to worry about the horrible things going on elsewhere or the potential future consequences of what I’m doing.
All of those things make sense when there aren’t constant headlines calling the regime you work for evil and pointing out daily all the bad things they are doing.
That’s the difference between working for the government during presidents previous to Trump and working for the government now.
There are a lot of things you can do working for the government that in years previous to the cancer currently running the place now could be seen as valuable and important.
Doing research into the effects and safety of drugs, climate change research, allocating public funds to education and the park service etc. Testing food safety.
Those jobs are still important despite the fact that the Cheeto in Chief is wrecking everything he can get his hands on.
At the same time, there’s jobs that people do where it’s obvious that they are looking to reap benefits now and hoping those benefits will protect them in the future. Press Secretary, Political Advisor, Head of Homeland Security.
There’s a line somewhere. Where you might be able to convince yourself that your work is important or meaningful or just plain not evil but you’re absolutely not telling people what you do for a living because you know that they won’t like it. People don’t face backlash for being garbage men or forensic investigators or Hazmat cleanup.
The people building AI are getting a daily dose of the harms that AI causes. This industry popped up basically over night and this isn’t a slow burn kind of thing. Its been moving fast and breaking things and ruining lives all in the public eye.
People also view their government as a sort of necessary evil. Psychologically that’s different than any random corp.
I think I’m just saying that when you’re faced day in and day out with the harm your work is doing, to the point where you recognize and admit it’s doing harm, rather than being able to say “my work is insignificant and makes no difference”, then rhere has to be something else.
They see this technology as powerful and their respective organizations or Nation needs to own it no matter the risk.
They are also conditioning the populace for a big black swan AI event such as AI interfering in elections or a huge multi institution hack to our banking system which drains our accounts, etc., etc.
Thereby creating a crisis which only they can solve. The one thing I can guarantee is their solutions will only give them more power.
Yup, AI is going to hack our banking system “accidentally” because it is so “powerful” and all that nonsense they have been feeding us. The reality is that the US is going to be unable to borrow long term debt or even service their existing debt so they need to switch to short term debt that they can control and steal citizen’s interest through stable coin as outlined in the Genius Act.
This is the only real way forward without having to default, so it is likely it will happen before 2028.
They have proven time and time again that they will do anything to screw over the middle class rather than have the rich pay their fair share in taxes. Which is what makes this theory so plausible.
That and they have already passed the legislation and they are currently converting long term debt into short term debt. It is really more of a conspiracy than a conspiracy theory until you get to the part where AI causes a banking panic forcing people to accept stable coin. This is obviously a reach, but one that makes perfect sense.
Roko’s Basilisk: the idea that the emergence of super-AI is inevitable and that it will kill everyone that hindered or didn’t support its development in revenge. If both those premises hold, it makes sense to aid its development for self-preservation.
I don’t think either premise holds, personally, but these people evidently do.
That human beings are logical and that they do anything with intention. For the vast majority of people, this is patently false.
That a super intelligence sees revenge as an efficient use of scarce resources, which given both that revenge is nonsensical without the prerequisite biological need for it, and the conclusion of ‘1’, is nonsensical.
That even if 1 and 2 were real, that there’s some inherent timeframe in which the AI thinks it should have been created.
The only real bodily danger of AI is inherent in the the humans who control it.
Your guess is as good as mine. There’s lots of people working in industries that are actively killing us. The whole “no ethical consumption” bit extends pretty far. When you’re poor it’s acceptable to do “the best you can”. As your economic standing grows/when you’re rich, there are diminishing returns on how much sympathy society will give you over what they view as choosing to destroy the planet or humanity or whatever.
The view is that if you have money you can do something about it.
So maybe some of them think they are helping. Maybe some of them view it as a damned if I do damned if I don’t type scenario. Maybe some of them think that the money will help them in the future that is coming.
This begs the question, why continue to build it? If you believe AI will “kill us all” then why are you continuing to help. This guy quit but he references this being a common belief in the industry/workforce building out AI.
My best guess is the money is good and you figure you’re here for a good time, not a long time.
Why do so many people continue to work with regimes that they fundamentally disagree with? There are lots of reasons, and people are complex so one person can hold several, even contradictory, beliefs at once. Some possible answers;
-It’s easier to go along with it and think of myself as being insignificant to the whole.
-Everyone else is doing it, so it can’t be as bad as I think, right?
-Its too big for any one person to fight/it’s inevitable, so I may as well get something out of it, that way at least some good comes from it.
-If I just focus on my job and what I’m doing right now, I don’t need to worry about the horrible things going on elsewhere or the potential future consequences of what I’m doing.
All of those things make sense when there aren’t constant headlines calling the regime you work for evil and pointing out daily all the bad things they are doing.
That’s the difference between working for the government during presidents previous to Trump and working for the government now.
There are a lot of things you can do working for the government that in years previous to the cancer currently running the place now could be seen as valuable and important.
Doing research into the effects and safety of drugs, climate change research, allocating public funds to education and the park service etc. Testing food safety.
Those jobs are still important despite the fact that the Cheeto in Chief is wrecking everything he can get his hands on.
At the same time, there’s jobs that people do where it’s obvious that they are looking to reap benefits now and hoping those benefits will protect them in the future. Press Secretary, Political Advisor, Head of Homeland Security.
There’s a line somewhere. Where you might be able to convince yourself that your work is important or meaningful or just plain not evil but you’re absolutely not telling people what you do for a living because you know that they won’t like it. People don’t face backlash for being garbage men or forensic investigators or Hazmat cleanup.
The people building AI are getting a daily dose of the harms that AI causes. This industry popped up basically over night and this isn’t a slow burn kind of thing. Its been moving fast and breaking things and ruining lives all in the public eye.
People also view their government as a sort of necessary evil. Psychologically that’s different than any random corp.
I think I’m just saying that when you’re faced day in and day out with the harm your work is doing, to the point where you recognize and admit it’s doing harm, rather than being able to say “my work is insignificant and makes no difference”, then rhere has to be something else.
You know that “yes we destroyed the world, but for a short time we created a lot of shareholder value” cartoon? It’s literally that.
They see this technology as powerful and their respective organizations or Nation needs to own it no matter the risk.
They are also conditioning the populace for a big black swan AI event such as AI interfering in elections or a huge multi institution hack to our banking system which drains our accounts, etc., etc.
Thereby creating a crisis which only they can solve. The one thing I can guarantee is their solutions will only give them more power.
Yup, AI is going to hack our banking system “accidentally” because it is so “powerful” and all that nonsense they have been feeding us. The reality is that the US is going to be unable to borrow long term debt or even service their existing debt so they need to switch to short term debt that they can control and steal citizen’s interest through stable coin as outlined in the Genius Act.
This is the only real way forward without having to default, so it is likely it will happen before 2028.
By the time we’re at that level, we can just stop pretending money is real.
It certainly won’t mean anything to an actual AI.
I was alluding to that conspiracy theory.
They have proven time and time again that they will do anything to screw over the middle class rather than have the rich pay their fair share in taxes. Which is what makes this theory so plausible.
That and they have already passed the legislation and they are currently converting long term debt into short term debt. It is really more of a conspiracy than a conspiracy theory until you get to the part where AI causes a banking panic forcing people to accept stable coin. This is obviously a reach, but one that makes perfect sense.
Roko’s Basilisk: the idea that the emergence of super-AI is inevitable and that it will kill everyone that hindered or didn’t support its development in revenge. If both those premises hold, it makes sense to aid its development for self-preservation.
I don’t think either premise holds, personally, but these people evidently do.
Roko’s Basilisk is stupid.
It presumes three things.
That human beings are logical and that they do anything with intention. For the vast majority of people, this is patently false.
That a super intelligence sees revenge as an efficient use of scarce resources, which given both that revenge is nonsensical without the prerequisite biological need for it, and the conclusion of ‘1’, is nonsensical.
That even if 1 and 2 were real, that there’s some inherent timeframe in which the AI thinks it should have been created.
The only real bodily danger of AI is inherent in the the humans who control it.
You’re just doing Pascal’s Wager For Computers.
I once saw someone call the Singularity the Rapture but for nerds, and I thought that was spot on.
I mean, yeah, I’m not saying that it’s plausible. But I don’t think we ascribe sound reasoning to those people in the first place.
Then why quit?
Your guess is as good as mine. There’s lots of people working in industries that are actively killing us. The whole “no ethical consumption” bit extends pretty far. When you’re poor it’s acceptable to do “the best you can”. As your economic standing grows/when you’re rich, there are diminishing returns on how much sympathy society will give you over what they view as choosing to destroy the planet or humanity or whatever.
The view is that if you have money you can do something about it.
So maybe some of them think they are helping. Maybe some of them view it as a damned if I do damned if I don’t type scenario. Maybe some of them think that the money will help them in the future that is coming.